The e-commerce giant had started seller lending programme in 2016 but only enabled the lender to provide a fixed loan to the seller.

Amazon India on Wednesday launched its Seller Lending Network, allowing the sellers on its platform to pursue loans from a number of third party lenders. The leading e-commerce portal has partners like Bank of Baroda, Capital Float, Capital First, Yes Bank, Flexiloans and Aditya Birla Finance for the new lending programme.

Amazon India stated that with the feature’s launch a seller can make use of all loan related activities that includes applying for loans, viewing multiple loan offers and can easily repay their loans by linking their Amazon sale proceeds to their loan account. All the activities can be performed on the Amazon’s Seller Central Portal. The platform will open APIs for lenders to plug in and sellers to choose from competitive rates and multiple loan offers. Such a platform has been launched for the first time. The company is also in process of creating ‘Lender Central’ which will be a separate lending platform for its lenders. Here the lenders can share seller information and other performance updates on a real-time basis.

Amazon India has about 3.4 lakh sellers on its platform. The platform also recently invested Rs. 144 crores into Capital Float that runs its own marketplace model for lending. Capital float is an NBFC which lends loans to small and medium businesses. Although Amazon India states that they won’t give any special preference to Capital Float as a seller. Amazon will be analyzing seller data on its platform using its own technology. However, no comment was made by Capital Float on the matter.

The loans can be availed through the process of online applications which requires minimal documentation and the loan is approved quickly within 2-3 days. Amazon India said that they want to make end-to-end process quick and easy which will allow their sellers to grow focusing on their core business.

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